The sliming of Shirley Sherrod

I have said it many times over the last couple of years, and unfortunately I’m sure I’ll have occasion to say it again: something rotten is happening in the frenzied nation to our south. For the most recent proof, look no further than this week’s systematic sliming of an innocent and honourable public servant, Shirley Sherrod.

American politics, a blood sport to say the least, has always been entertaining to observe from afar. But thanks to glaringly dishonest citizen *cough* ” journalism” and a TV channel that does shit-mongering and character assassination with the enthusiasm of a pack of hyenas falling on a dying antelope, it’s become something much uglier. That the Fox Channel does its vile and shabby work in the guise of “News”, completely without the rigours of journalistic integrity applied by even the dumbest, low-tier blogger, makes it a shit-stain on the once-proud profession of journalism.

And speaking of dumb bloggers, how about this “Breitbart” character who got the ball rolling on the sliming of Sherrod on his blog, uh, “Big Douchebag” I think it was called? Not just a clown and dolt but a low-rent dung-peddler and genuine human scum of the first order, with the brains of a tree toad and the morals of a hammerhead shark. An amateur hit man who uses spliced and diced video to do the execrable, and thanks to a malleable media, he’s just good enough at it to pick a few scabs off the American psyche.

It’s well past time that these brainless bullies were stood up to and sent slithering back under their scum-ridden rocks. Olbermann’s Special Comment last night about nailed it:

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20 Responses to “The sliming of Shirley Sherrod”

Especially sickening considered Bill O’Reilly last night ‘apologized’ to Sherrod and then attacked her anew. Not only can the right never apologize, they renew their attacks with extra vigilance after softening the blow with nice talk. I’m wondering if Breitbart will investigate Sherrod further, attempting to uncover any minute ‘evidence’ that will embarrass Sherrod further.

deBeauxOs – Good post, I read that yesterday. Not surprising at all that Frum would be disgusted — he’s more of a real conservative (albeit a neo) than the authoritarian conspiracy nuts and nazi scum who claim the “conservative” label nowadays.

The part when he tells Obama to watch “The American President” was apt. I watched Olberman 3 times last night to just re-watch that speech. It’s time for Obama to start realizing he can look back and see what he did as the president or he can look back and see what he wanted to do as a bi-partisan president. Time’s running out.

Bleatmop – Indeed. I see what he’s trying to do, and it’s an honourable goal, but by the end of last summer (and certainly by the time health care passed) he should have known this dream of bipartisanship was a delusional fantasy. If he continues on this path he may be a one term prez, sadly, not through any real fault of his own other than sheer naivety and underestimating the viciousness of his opposition. He has to realize that the opposition really doesn’t care what happens to America. At all.

Good morrow, all!
Yeah, it’s about time the President stopped being ‘The Nice Guy” and started being “The Good Guy.” He could start by not throwing people under the bus everytime Bill-O the Clown opens his mouth.
Nice guys finish last. Good guys finish the bad guys. – CTZen

“Ironically, while a number of mainstream media outlets claim that Fox News is responsible for getting Sherrod to resign, Fox’s first call for a resignation, made by Bill O’Reilly just before 9:00 pm on Monday, came roughly an hour after Sherrod had actually resigned.

In other words, Fox News exerted no meaningful pressure on the administration to take any specific actions with regard to Sherrod before the administration took those actions on its own accord.”

Jasper – Smarten up. Even you should know that in this situation it wouldn’t have taken an actual “call for resignation” from anyone (much less Bill-O the Clown) to make it happen. Playing Breitbart’s shit-encrusted video and spinning the fake racist narrative around it was all it took to make the resignation happen.

The good news is that this will be the last time serious people make the mistake of responding to anything crapped out by Fox with more than a “Yeah, right”. Well played, Breitfart.

OOPs… I recall reading a statement of one of the last participants in the Russian Revolution. He estimated that the revolution was delayed for several years because too many people believed that the Czar (those good friends of Izzy’s family) really loved the Russian people and was prevented from expressing that love.

The problem was not the Czar’s love – it may be moot if that existed or not, the problem is the system that had grown up around them.

So it is with the Pres. – he is only a fish the swims in the cess pool, revolving door, bought and sold milieu of Washington. (Ottawa is not that bad ….yet.) Obama is what he does .. and what he does is despicable.

“So it is with the Pres. – he is only a fish the swims in the cess pool, revolving door, bought and sold milieu of Washington. (Ottawa is not that bad ….yet.) Obama is what he does .. and what he does is despicable.”

I would give that a qualified agreement. He is definitely better than Bush in a lot of areas, but there are a lot of things he could solve with the simple order to do it, and he just hasn’t done it yet.

Gtmo – still going strong with no end in sight

Don’t ask Don’t tell – Why is this still an issue? Because bigots need their say before its ended?

Banking reform – What banking reform? I have yet to hear of any bills.

Bailout and Stimulus accountability – Apparently a dead issue because the crooks that took the money say that he can’t do that.

Compromised health bill – Worse than it would have been if it had been through reconciliation.

Selling women out in the health bill – Signing a bill that forces women have to buy separate health insurance for reproductive health is deplorable. Why not use a signing statement?

And the list goes on. But hey, at least he’s not perpetuating a war in Afghanistan and taking a decade to draw back in Iraq, right?

So it is with the Pres. – he is only a fish the swims in the cess pool, revolving door, bought and sold milieu of Washington.

That sounds about right… the only difference between the fish in that cesspool is degrees of toxicity.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Obama campaigned to the left and governs from the center – every politician does it, they have to because they’re all bought & paid for. Paddy Chayefsky knew it 34 years ago, we’re just catching on now.

Bleatmop – Certainly Obama has a long way to go, as evidenced by all the points you make. (And a policy as dumb as DADT, he could and should have addressed on his first day in office, or at least his first week.)

However, I think it’s important to remember that he did make *some* achievements which given the poisonous political climate down there is pretty amazing. Let’s see…

The economy didn’t completely melt down. The health care bill might be pretty lame compared to our own robust universal healthcare system, and certainly abortion rights got thrown under the bus, but for America it’s at least a start. It can be amended — progressive Dems are working on re-introducing the public option. The stimulus: also lame, but it actually worked (for awhile).

Considering that most of the weakness in these bills was due to the opposition’s complete and total stonewalling, I would say that Obama’s biggest mistake was wasting time chasing “bipartisanship”.

JJ – Agreed. Bipartisanship the way he envisioned it was a complete pipedream. They should be trying to work with certain republicans on certain issues and different ones on different issues. And if they don’t have any republicans to work with, simply go through reconciliation. COBRA is considered one of the greatest bills in modern US history, and it is a reconciliation bill.